


Cloudy With a Chance of Drabbles

by foxyboxes



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:58:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7519553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxyboxes/pseuds/foxyboxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of prompt-based abridged thiefshipping shorts originally written for tumblr and compiled all in one place by request</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Snowball Fight

_AUTHOR'S NOTE - While I was going through a period of writer's block on tumblr, I beseeched my followers to give me ideas for abridged Marik/Bakura scenarios, offering to write a drabble in return for good ideas.   Somewhere along the line "drabble" became "short story", but overall, I felt these were all really good exercise and wanted to share them ^_^  Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

 

 

**PROMPT** \- **_what about marik and bakura's first snowball fight?_**

 

 

“Bakura!  BAKURA!!”  Marik demanded, bouncing the mattress more and more insistently.   Under most circumstances, Marik yelling his name and making the bed shake was behavior that Bakura encouraged in a big way.     However, when it was the early morning and he’d JUST gotten himself comfortable enough to sleep on this sorry excuse for a hotel mattress, he was having none of it.

“Bugger off, Marik.” the spirit growled, grabbing a handful of the duvet and tucking his head beneath it.

“But you’re missing it!” the boy complained. and then switched his tactic to attempting to unwrap the stubborn burrito his cohort had become.  "Bakura, I COMMAND you to haul your lazy butt out of that bed!“

“Whatever ‘it’ is, will wait.”  The spirit redoubled his hold on the blanket, determined not to be taken from it.   It was bad enough they were AT an anime convention, but the fact it was an American anime convention during the tail-end of autumn made it even worse.   He was bloody freezing.  everything stank like wet leaves, and frankly he had no idea how half of the attendants were wandering around with hardly any clothing to speak of.   

Only further proof that cosplayers were inhuman, he’d thought sourly.  

Marik, with a strength he didn’t look like he ought to have possessed, channeled his annoyance into giving the blanket a tremendous yank, dragging both it and its occupant from the mattress to thump to the floor in a tangled heap of British obscenities.

“What the bloody hell–?!” Bakura snapped as Marik charged for the window, not even having the decency to stay around and allow himself to be properly yelled at.  

“LOOK!”  was the response as the spirit grudgingly unearthed himself from his warm fortress and stalked across the room.   

“This had better be good.”  the spirit warned.  And by ‘good’ what he meant was 'a troupe of Marik’s fangirls being cooked alive in the jacuzzi.’   As he neared the window, however, it became apparent very quickly that there was nowhere near the necessary heat for that sort of thing.   A cascade of white flakes were silently falling, and held Marik’s full, captivated attention as he pressed his nose up against the glass.   “…snow?” 

“It’s friggin _SNOW_!”  the boy confirmed, his voice aquiver with childish delight as he bolted from the window to dive for his suitcase, rifling an outfit out of the tangle of laundry inside.   “I’m gonna build the biggest fort!   No! A snow angel first!  Maybe I should start with a snowman and work my way up…”

Bakura didn’t nearly share Marik’s enthusiasm as he fixed the snowfall with a sour look, and then let his gaze wander to the bedside clock.“It’s three in the buggering morning…” the spirit said flatly, noting that this did nothing to slow Marik down from dressing himself.    "Everyone in their right mind is still asleep.“

"Excellent!  More snow for us!”

“It’ll be freezing out there, Marik.”

“We’ll be getting the full experience!”

“There’s barely an inch of it on the ground.  How, exactly, do you intend to build a _fort_?”

“I have excellent improvisational skills!”   Having said so, Marik finished dressing himself in the warmest outfit he’d packed (which still showed off generous amounts of skin) and headed for the door.   “Come, Bakura!” he demanded.   “Jack Frost has nipped at our noses and the time has come to nip at HIS extremities!” 

“Wonderful…”  Bakura grumbled as he remained where he was, watching the door to their room swing shut.    Once Marik was gone, the spirit abruptly stormed back to the bed, flopping himself face-first onto the cooling mattress and groping blindly for the duvet on the floor.   If that bloody idiot wanted to go flounce around in the snow until sunrise, that was on him.   HE wanted no part of it.    Maybe a bad cold was just what Marik needed to learn his lesson.   Or freezer burn on his midriff.  

Or slipping in a patch of ice and cracking his fool head on the sidewalk with no one there to do anything about it…

The last thought was just as sobering as it was annoying, making Bakura’s eyes snap open and stare into the darkness of the room for several endless minutes.   He was NOT going out there, he assured himself as he sat up.     Marik was old enough to look after himself.   He was sixteen going on…well, suffice to say, he'd been sixteen for quite some time now.  

Kicking off the blankets, Bakura angrily dressed, assuring himself all the while that was only doing so to stay warm.   In the room.  The room he was NOT leaving under any circumstances tonight.   “Bugger…” he growled, snatching the single warm article of clothing he’d packed - one of Ryou’s hand-knitted mufflers - off of the back of the armchair and mummifying his neck and shoulders in it.   At some point, this partnership had become far more trouble than it was worth…  
  
_ _ _ _ _ _  
  


The hotel’s automatic front doors swiffed shut behind him a few moments later, leaving Bakura standing in the frigid silence.   Even the small amount of snow that had fallen had created an odd quieting effect.   If one wanted to, it was easy to pretend that they were the only living person for miles…

“Marik…!”  Bakura called into the darkness, finding a set of fresh tracks in the powder and following them.   There was no doubt they were Marik’s, judging by the way they zigged and zagged from one place to the next.   It was comical, really, how easy it was to imagine what he’d done just by the evidence he’d left behind.   There was a half-done snow angel over near the picnic tables, and a low-hanging branch conspicuously devoid of the snow its neighbors carried painted a mental picture of him crouching beneath it and shaking it down on his own head.  

What an idiot…

A smile had just begun to tug at Bakura’s mouth  when something pegged the back of his head, rattling him out of his amused thoughts.   A nasally cheer, and the feeling of freezing cold water worming its way down his scalp told him what had happened even before he rounded on his partner, lip curled in a reproachful snarl.   

“All right so maybe there WASN’T enough to build a fort…” Marik said with a haughty toss of his snow-dusted hair and a self-satisfied smirk.    "Who needs a fort in a war anyway?“   

"A war, is it…?”   Bakura growled, feeling rather like he could do with some bloodshed at the moment as melted snow leaked down his neck.

“Yeah!  ….wait, no.  I've got to declare it first, right?”   Marik murmured thoughtfully. With that having been said, he cocked back his arm and chucked a second meager snowball at Bakura.   Ready for it this time, the spirit was able to dodge.   “THIS IS WAR, FLUFFY!”  he announced, loping off to a safe distance to scoop up more.   

For a few seconds, Bakura could only stand there, dismayed, and wondering if the gangly blonde desperately trying to get powdered snow to pack together in order to fling it at him was a figment of his imagination.Maybe he’d jolt awake at any moment, still in the room, with Marik tucked in beside him sleeping soundly, and boggling at whatever his imagination had been trying to tell him with this dream.    Though, if it WAS a dream….Bakura immediately found himself bent over, hastily scooping the icy powder between his fingers.   

He had finished his first snowball just as Marik pelted a third in his direction, missing him again in his haste to fling it without aiming properly.    Bakura returned fire, his own powdered missile exploding on impact with Marik’s bangs, showering his face in the stuff with a strangled  “GYEH!”    That…had been oddly satisfying.   So much so that Bakura immediately went after another, ignoring the stinging cold in his fingertips.

Soon, the air was alive with stray powder, flying slushballs, and occasional cries and curses that punctuated their impact.    "AH! Stop! Quiddit!  It’s my turn to hit YOU now!  Stop hogging turns, Bakura!“   

"What’s wrong, Marik? Can’t finish what you star–HNGH!   Stop aiming for my buggering face!”     

“Maybe if you’d close your friggin mouth once in awhile, balls wouldn’t keep trying to get into it!”  At this, Bakura erupted into peals of booming laughter, overcome both by what Marik had just said, and the utter ridiculousness of the entire situation, leaving Marik to stand there uncertainly with his half-made snowball.   

“Are you laughing at me??” he demanded to know, summoning what authority he could in his current disheveled, wet, chap-cheeked state, which only made Bakura laugh harder.    "Because, mark my words, I will GIVE you something to laugh about…!“  

“HEY!” a voice from overhead yelled, drawing both males’ attention as a puffy-eyed, sleepy con attendant glowered down at them from their room’s window.   “Some of us are trying to get some sleep! I’ve got a cosplay panel to be at in four hours!”  In a moment of solidarity, the pair exchanged a quick look with one another before setting their sights back on the window…which, seconds later, was so covered in splatters of powdered snowballs, it was difficult to tell if their detractor had thought to close it again or not


	2. A Sudden Sneeze

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt thing: Imagine your OTP Lying in bed, foreheads pressed together, just gazing into each other’s eyes and taking it all in. Everything is silent. And then Person A suddenly sneezes and scares Person B so badly that they fall out of bed. (this was a post I saw)

This was a new step for them.  

Not the sex… _that_ had been carrying on for nearly a month now, usually concluded by Marik catching his breath, and then scuttling off into a shower.    In the time it would take him to get his hair and eyeliner situated, he would be pretending it had never happened and expect Bakura to entertain the same delusion as he queued up another of his Let’s Plays.    

As long as neither of them acknowledged the fact they were in one, a sort of relationship existed between them now.   The minute any questions were raised, however, all of it would come crashing down as Marik hastily redrew the boundary lines of his straightness and insisted he was not into **_that_** , and ESPECIALLY not into Bakura.

_Schrodinger’s Fuck_ , was what it was.

Today, though, for whatever reasons he’d had,  Marik had stayed long enough to let the afterglow weave its warm, drunken magic over the two of them.   He laid atop Bakura in a messy sprawl, never having bothered to dismount as they indulged in a rare moment of closeness, their foreheads (among other things) pressed firmly together.  

It was…nice, Bakura allowed himself to believe as he gazed up into his partner’s eyes, memorizing the way the dusky purple of his irises broke down into ringlets of intertwining red and blue up close.   Maybe he ought to say something, he thought hazily….something about the great Marik Sebastian Ishtar the third being quite colorful.   And then perhaps he’d be infuriating and refuse to elaborate if Marik demanded an explanation.    

Marik, too, looked as if he might be thinking of saying something.   Twice, he opened his mouth to speak, only to vent a flummoxed breath and fall quiet again.   That was all right, he could take his time…Bakura had been patient THIS long, after all…

“Hey, Bakura…?” Marik ventured at last, the words more mouthed than actually spoken.

“Hrm…?”    He allowed a hand to stray up to the boy’s mussed hair, smoothing his fingers through it in quiet encouragement.    In all likelihood, it was nothing important…probably just some asinine observation about how, next time, if they did it in the tub, they could throw in a load of laundry and some detergent and kill two birds with one stone.  And yet, still, there was that tiny hope that maybe, just maybe, Marik might have something of substance to say about this.   About _them_.

“Do you think–”

“ ** _CHOOF!!_** ”  The sneeze had crept up on him so quickly and quietly that Bakura hadn’t even felt it coming.    Marik wheeled backward in surprise, the force of it setting him off-balance and, before Bakura could grab onto one of his wildly-pinwheeling hands to steady him, the blonde had gone toppling arse-over-applecart straight to the floor in a heap.  

Well…so much for that.  

“Marik?”  Bakura asked, peering over the edge of the bed at him.    He remained unresponsive, staring straight up at the ceiling, wide-eyed, as Bakura’s face pinched in concern.    " _Marik_ ,“ he said again, reaching out to him.  "Are you all rig–”

“You friggin _SNEEZED_ in my _FACE_!!” he erupted suddenly, and now it was Bakura’s turn to be startled as Marik bolted upright, and wiped at his cheeks, eyes, and mouth dramatically as if he were crawling with all sorts of unsavory cooties.    "GROSS, Bakura!!“

"It wasn’t on purpose, okay?!”  he grumbled defensively and rather wishing they could rewind the clock ten seconds and go back to being pleasantly tangled up.  

“Great, I’m probably going to get sick now.”  the boy groused, moving to gather his legs beneath himself.   “Pretty sure I can feel a fever coming on as we speak.”

“No, that’s just the heating…” Bakura muttered, picking at a stray pill of lint on the covers in frustration, making Marik shoot him a reproachful glare.

“Why do we even HAVE an effing heater in the middle of the friggin desert?!”

“I get chilly at night.”  Bakura informed him matter-of-factly before reclining back against the pillows lazily, putting on his most alluring of faces.   “I’m sure there ARE alternatives, though.   I’m quite open to…. _suggestions_.”

“Maybe you could rake up all the hair you shed off and knit yourself a sweater.”  Marik offered, fetching up his shirt to start putting it back on.   Realizing the mood was well-and-truly dead, Bakura gave up his attempts to pursue it with a cheated growl.   He didn’t shed THAT much…   “Anyway, I’m gonna get a shower and then fire up some Vampire The Masquerade.  You in?”

Bakura sighed, draping one pale arm across his eyes.   “Aren’t I always….?”

“Excellent!   Then i expect your butt on the couch in no less than two hours from now!    Also, you should try and talk more this time.  The fans like hearing you and me go at it.”

“Yes.  I, ALSO, like hearing us go at it.”  he grated as Marik sauntered out of the room, oblivious and affording him one last glance at his glorious backside.    A moment later, water began hissing through the pipes and the sound of Marik’s boisterous, nasally singing filled the hallway as Bakura rolled over, burying his nose in the pillow and breathing deeply of the pleasant musk the two of them had left behind.  

It wasn’t quite where he’d like things to be, but it was better than the nothing they’d had, all in all.    And, who knew?  With a few more years’ persistence, maybe Marik could even be coerced into admitting, at least privately, he wasn’t as straight as he claimed he was.


	3. When Bakuras Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - I wondered if Marik had ever been confronted with Bakura shaken by a nightmare of his own?

There were times he wondered if giving up his mortality meant that he was beyond certain things that came with having a human expiration date.

Bakura’s dreams had lacked substance for years…a few flickering visuals here, some phantom sensations there, and then he was awake and going about his busy day of tagging along after a blonde menace’s crackpot whims.    
  
He couldn’t say what had aligned in his head tonight to shake up the status quo, only that at some point, the blue-black of his subconscious had given way to scenery that was just as familiar as it was horrible.  A child once more, and swathed in the glow of a fire that had stolen his family and innocence in one fell swoop, he hid in the threshold of one of the forcibly-vacated homes.   Millennia of plotting, seething, and hardening himself to all things human were stripped away from him in an instant, leaving only helpless terror as he watched the flames swallow everything (and every _one_ ) he’d once known.   
  
Somewhere nearby, footsteps approached, causing him to duck further into his nook, afraid to move, afraid to _breathe_ as they stopped not two feet from him.   The way history had panned out, after an uncomfortable pause, the owner of the footsteps had kept walking, allowing Bakura the leeway he’d needed to secure a better hiding spot until the Pharaoh’s men had left, none the wiser to his presence.  
  
That was why it came as such a surprise when hands knifed through the darkness and seized hold of him.   Immediately, he went electric in his captor’s grip - flailing, thrashing, biting, whatever it took to make them let go.  This wasn’t how the bloody script went!  He was supposed to survive!  He was _supposed_ to…!  _He HAD to!_

He  
  
_Bakura!_

deserved that much after  
  
_BAKURA…!!_

all that he’d lost.   
  
__**HEY!! WAKE UP!!  
**  
Marik’s voice, shrill and demanding, pierced through the veil of the nightmare and sent it scattering back to the dark corners of his subconscious as he bolted upright in bed with a gasp.     There was no fire, only the sallow glow of their bedside lamp.   There was no faceless palace guard, only Marik, hunkered over him clutching his shoulders and rudely shaking them.  
  
“BAKURA!  EARTH TO BAKURA!  COME IN BAKURA!”  
  
“Stop that.” he growled, swatting Marik’s hands away.  “I’m up.   I’m UP, for bloody’s sake…!”    On the subject of ‘bloody’….    “….are you bleeding?”  
  
Marik blinked and then reached up to swipe the back of his hand beneath his nose and regard the smear of crimson that came away on his skin with a childish sort of bewilderment.   The sort that compelled others to forget whatever their problems currently were and concern themselves with whether he was all right.  
  
“You kinda clocked me when you started thrashing around.” he explained, making his partner inwardly cringe as he reached out to tweeze Marik’s chin in his fingers.  
  
“Here, let’s see it.” he said, tilting the boy’s head to various angles to investigate his nose.   Marik allowed this indignity, despite the fact he was shifting into gear to act properly outraged about it.   
  
“Does it look broken?  You’d better not have broken it.   Bakura, tampering with my perfect face is an unforgivable offense!”  
  
“It isn’t broken.”  the spirit decided at last, a bit relieved and not entirely because of the bitching he’d have to endure otherwise.    “Should still get some ice on it, though.”  
  
“Get me a soda while you’re up.”  Marik huffed, making it clear Bakura had not been entirely forgiven for this transgression, and that it was now his duty to tend to the damage he’d done.    He vented a sigh, though supposed he owed his partner that much, what with smacking him in the face and all…unintentional though it may have been.    
  
A shuffling trip to and from the kitchen later, and Marik was reclining against the pillows, clutching a makeshift icepack constructed from an empty takeout bag to his face with one hand, and a freshly-opened Dr. Pepper in the other.   
  
“You really should warn people before having a nightmare right next to them.”   Marik said once the silence had expanded beyond levels he was comfortable with.   
  
“Yes, so sorry.  Next time I’ll make sure to post memos around the hideout a week in advance and have a few drills first.   Just like YOU do when you wake me up screaming about Mel Gibson.”  
  
“That’s different!” Marik insisted, his voice more nasally than usual as he spoke around the bag of ice cubes pressed to his face.  “If you’d been there, you’d know how friggin traumatizing that guy can be when his acting ‘career’ goes unappreciated, Bakura.”  
  
“I was on the buggering couch right behind you.”  he reminded the boy.   It was all a charade, of course…they both knew that the real reason Marik screamed and kicked himself awake some nights had nothing to do with dated games about vampires or washed-up alcoholic celebrities.   However, it made the subject more palatable when they both pretended it did.   
  
“You’re shaking.”   
  
“Am I?”   He was, he realized, as he looked down on his still-jittering hands and promptly folded them over one another.    
  
“It must have bugged you pretty badly, huh?”    This was not an observation, Bakura knew.  This was Marik not-so-subtly probing for details.   
  
“Yes, well….at this late date,  I don’t see the point in retelling my tragic villain origin story yet again.”  
  
“Yeah, it gets brought up in pretty much every fan fiction you appear in anyway.”  Marik agreed, setting the soda on the bedside table.  
  
“Bloody fangirls…”    He felt Marik shift closer to him on the mattress and a gentling warmth immediately surged through him even before he was actually touched.   Comfort had been another of those bygone human things that he’d assumed lost to him.  Feeling soothed, he’d thought, was reserved for those who _hadn’t_ offered up their soul to a demon in exchange for the thousands of years it would take for their revenge to be realized.   
  
As Marik dropped an arm across the spirit’s shoulders, Bakura drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, slouching himself against the presence of his cohort   While it was true that neither of them were in any position to ‘fix’ one another, broken as they both were,  Bakura felt they’d done a fair job of, at least, working together to keep all their shattered pieces in one place.   It was mostly Bakura reigning Marik in and cleaning up after him, true, but there were times - rare moments like this - when Marik was able to give back a little.  
  
They remained that way for several moments, neither speaking, and Marik’s fingertips fiddling with Bakura’s sweat-matted hair in a distracted sort of way.    Having not been on the receiving end of much protection growing up,  it was sorely apparent that Marik had no idea how to go about calming someone else, and was just sort of hoping that the awkward gesture would be enough to return things to normal.  
  
Tonight, it was.  
  
“How’s your nose?” Bakura ventured at last.  
  
“Stuffy.”  was the reply, with a loud, theatrical sniff for emphasis.  It wasn’t bleeding anymore, anyway, as he set the icepack aside to join the soda…  “So, do you wanna….”  
  
“…talk about it?  No, not really.”  
  
“I was going to ask if you wanted to put on The Golden Girls or something.”    It had, somehow, become one of their late-night guilty pleasures when they couldn’t sleep and ranked somewhere in the upper-middle of Marik’s list of things The Outside World Must Never Hear Of.    
  
“As much as it thrills me to have you compare me to Bea Arthur every three seconds, I think I’ll pass.”  
  
“Hey, YOU started it!” Marik insisted.  “The dumb one said something dumb and you said she was my spirit animal!”  
  
“And then you dumped your bag of swedish fish down my shirt in retaliation, so I recall.”    He could feel himself grinning, even before Marik gave a loud chuff of laughter.   
  
“And then you found one stuck under your arm the next day after you thought you’d gotten them all!” he cackled, the arm around Bakura tightening a bit in a fond side-hug.   “You were so MAD!”   

He turned his head to regard the spirit then, the bedroom lamp catching his eyes in just such a way that disarmed Bakura entirely, replacing the runoff of long-ago terrors with a swelling of love for the boy.    Marik and all of his daft planning, squawking tantrums, and candy-dumping.   Marik who would, perhaps, never grow beyond the age his world had been torn down by those who had put him in it.  

If, whenever he finally hopped off the bullet train of immortality, he had nothing to show for his thousands of years except having having stolen a few pairs of pants alongside a blonde idiot with a tepid sense of troublemaking,  Bakura felt he might be able to be happy with that.   
  
Marik muffled something unintelligible against his lips and Bakura realized he’d begun kissing him at some point.   
  
“Hm?” he asked, drawing back enough to relinquish the other’s mouth.  
  
“I said ‘are you feeling better?’ “  
  
“What do you think?” Bakura challenged with a low, playful growl as he ducked his head to bury his face in his partner’s neck.  
  
“I think yYGYEH!  No biting!”  Marik sputtered, shying away from the prickle of teeth on his skin.  “Bakura, quit!”  
  
“Make me.”  
  
“Oh I’ll friggin MAKE you, all right!  It won’t just be fish you’ll be discovering in your crevices this time!”  he vowed, as the two began to tussle all over the bed in a tangle of sheets, wildly-scrabbling limbs, and distinctly British-sounding laughter.     
  
Somewhere, in the middle of it all, the business of nightmares and bloody noses had been entirely forgotten.


	4. A Two-Man Campaign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - I think a cute fic would be Bakura inviting Marik to play a tabletop RPG. Maybe Ryou could get in on it too, if it was set in their Soul Room

“Okay, so we’ve got sodas, snacks, I am wearing one of your nerd shirts,  and I have not washed my hair yet today.  I would say that I am sufficiently ready for this gaming experience.”  Marik declared as he entered the living room.   His hair was tied back in a loose horsetail, and he was, indeed, wearing one of Bakura’s (Ryou’s, really) shirts with the legend _‘I Really Wish That Rorschach Guy Would Quit Painting Pictures Of My Parents Fighting’_ emblazoned on the front.  Considering everyone in the hideout’s track record with living parental units, Bakura was left to wonder whether his host was developing a particularly dark sense of humor as he got older, or if it had been a gift that he’d not had the heart to throw away.  
  
“Yes, well, there won’t BE a gaming experience unless more people show up.”  Bakura stated flatly, not looking up from his book.     
  
“Eh?”  Marik cast a look around the hideout as if, for the first time, noticing they were alone in it.   “But I sent out _invitations_!”  he insisted.   “You don’t get an invite to one of my get-togethers and just not show up!   ….maybe they’re running late.  Bakura, check the sign-ups on Facebook.”  
  
Bakura obliged with a roll of his eyes, pulling out his phone to thumb through the Facebook application he’d been made to install on it.   It hadn’t been that long ago he’d avidly refused Marik’s demands he get ‘on the grid’, much preferring the idea of being able to vanish into the shadows for a few days here and there whenever he liked.   The problem was, the longer he spent with the boy, the less he felt the need to get away from him.      

Nowadays, he carried it with him religiously.  Marik wasn’t in the habit of making shopping lists and it was much more convenient to text and ask whether they needed more bathroom tissue than it was to have to make a 3 AM store run because one of them discovered such the hard way.    
  
“Pegasus has declined due to a conference he’s attending in America.   Rex and Weevil have also declined, stating that Thursdays are their ‘scope out hot chicks’ night.”  
  
“Those are crappy reasons!  What about the others?”  
  
“They declined with no reason given.”  Bakura deadpanned, repocketing his phone as Marik made a noise of abject disgust, flopping down on the opposite end of the couch.  
  
“What have I done to deserve such a do-nothing Evil Council?” he demanded to know.   “Take a memo - I want them all flogged at the next meeting.”  
  
“I’ll get right on that.”  the spirit muttered, returning to his book.    
  
“Oh well, I guess it’s just gonna have to be you and me, then.”  
  
“So it seems.  We could put on a movie….it IS your turn to pick.”  
  
“ _No_ , Bakura!  I want to play!”   
  
“I beg your pardon?”  Dark eyes peered disapprovingly over the top of the pages.  “A tabletop campaign, just the two of us?”  
  
“Yeah!  You can do that, right?”  Marik pried.   “I mean, not that it’s my thing, but I DID kind of get myself all hyped up for nothing otherwise”  
  
“I–no.  Marik, these games are built to have several players.   If it was just you and me, it would basically just be me telling you a story and you reacting to it.”  
  
“So?  Are you telling me I don’t react to your stories well enough?”  he huffed indignantly.   “Because let me assure you, I am an EXCELLENT story-receiver.  Go ahead, tell me one and I’ll demonstrate.”  
  
“This isn’t about whether you’d react well to my–”   he was cut short by a loud theatrical gasp.  
  
“NO WAY!  THEN what happened??” Marik asked, eyes wide with over-the-top surprise.    Bakura fixed him with a glare before continuing.    
  
“You’re missing the point.”  he tried again.   “It would be a waste of time.”  
  
“I kind of thought that was the whole idea.” Marik admitted.    
  
“No, it’s more than that.”  Bakura insisted.  “It’s about creating and getting into a role.   And then using that role, other people’s input, and luck of the dice to weave a bloody universe and tell a story.    
  
“I’m still not seeing what that has to do with us not being able to play with ourselves.”   
  
“Look, it’s–“  
  
“Stop nerding at me and set up the game, you…. _nerd!_ ” the boy demanded, producing his rod out of nowhere to point it threateningly at Bakura.   He regarded the ancient artifact with distaste.   Back to this, then, were they?   He was firmly of a mind to get up from the couch, relocate to his room, and barricade the door for the rest of the evening.  …or until Marik found something else to capture his interest.  Whichever came first.  
  
“Fine.” he heard himself say instead, snapping his book closed and sitting up as he grabbed for one of the papers he had, despite knowing no one was really going to be interested in Marik’s Evil Night Of Evil Roleplaying, set out anyway.   “Fill one of these out and we’ll get started.”

————————————-

One frustrating session of character-building later, and things were set for Blishtar the Sexy and Charismatic Elf Guy Thingie and Jonathan The Barbarian to begin their adventure.    
  
“You are in a sparsely-populated tavern.”  Bakura began.  “It’s late at night and most of the patrons have gone to bed.   A barmaid is sweeping the floor, there is a man passed out at his table in the corner, and sitting at the bar–”  
  
“Can I grind that guy for experience points?”  Marik interrupted.  “I always like to get a jump on stuff like that right at the start.  That way I don’t get overwhelmed later when I’m killing rats in the tutorial part.”  
  
“This isn’t bloody Elder Scrolls!”     
  
“Okay, but can I?”  

“ _Sitting at the bar,_ ” he went on  “there is a tall man with pale hair, dark eyes, and a broad-shouldered body.   He is covered in dirt and dried blood as if he’s recently seen battle.  He is drinking an ale.”  
  
“I wanna grind the guy!”  
  
“ _Ugh._ ”  Bakura pushed the die at him.   “Roll for it.”    Marik wasted no time in scooping it up and letting it clatter to the coffee table where it landed on a 2 as a vindictive smile unfurled across the spirit’s lips.   “You approach the sleeping man and draw your dagger.   Unfortunately, your cloak catches on a stray nail, causing you to stumble and fall atop him.   The man wakes up, and yells for someone to get this guy to stop grinding on him.   You are bodily ejected from the tavern by a burly innkeep who smells of goats, and are now outside.”  
  
“What?? No way!” Marik squawked.  “I go back into the tavern and I smite them all with my rod!”  
  
“Sorry, your stats aren’t nearly high enough.”   Bakura grinned, more pleased by this outcome than he should have been.    
  
“Then I’ll just go find another tavern!  A better one!  With guys who will let me grind them for levels!”  
  
“Unfortunately, it’s late and nowhere else is open at the moment.   The barbarian has left the tavern, attracted by your noise and now stands before you.”  
  
“That’s you, right?  Can I talk to you?    HAIL AND WELL-MET, GOOD SIR KNIGHT. CANS’T THOU POINT ME IN THE DIRECTION OF THE SALAD BAR?”  
  
Bakura set his jaw in annoyance.  “Marik, do you actually want to play, or just screw around?”   Their eyes met from across the sofa, just long enough to make Bakura’s blood bubble with longing and frustration, and then it was over as Marik waved a hand dismissively.  
  
“Okay, okay… _geez_.  What is it with you and sticking to the rules all the time?  We’re VILLAINS, Bakura.  You know, you can really be a killjoy.”  
  
“I’m not a killjoy.” the spirit grouched, crossing his arms over his chest.  “I just don’t appreciate having my dungeon mastering belittled.”  
  
“All right, lemme just slip into character, here…”  Marik cleared his throat.   “Greetings Barbarian!   I see that you possess a very large weapon…I desire such qualities in my men!”     
  
Bakura immediately shot a look at his partner, only to be met with Marik’s usual vacuous gaze, making it impossible to tell whether he had continued to make a mockery of things, or whether he was merely being Marik.  “He rolls his shoulders and looks down at you.  ‘What makes you think I have any interest in offering you my qualities?   With all that noise you’re making, you’ll bring the giants straight down from their mountain and right on our heads.’ ”  
  
“Well, fine.  I’ll just go explore the dungeons and dragons by myself if you want to be a bitch about it.”  
  
“No.  Marik. He’s a man of war.  He kills friends, he doesn’t make them.  He’ll need a bit of convincing.”  
  
“Look, he’s already basked in my glory, and if that didn’t do it for him, then clearly his eyes don’t work and he has no business wandering around in dungeons, Bakura.  He’s a liability to my grand adventure.”  Marik snorted, reaching out to fish a handful of salted peanuts out of the open tin on the tabletop.    
  
“Hnngh, whatever.  Look, we’ll skip the bloody introductions.”  Bakura growled with a wave of his hand as he flipped a few pages.   “They’ve agreed to travel together and are now investigating some nearby caverns.”  
  
“What kind of caverns?” Marik asked around his mouthful of nuts.  
  
“The kind that hopefully will lead to their swift end.”     
  
“Is there treasure in them?   The sooner I get blinged out, the sooner I can buy that friggin tavern and personally fire that goat guy who kicked me out.”  
  
“There are two pathways from the first chamber -  one is a downward stairway, and the other heads straight ahead.”  
  
“Let’s take the stairs.” Marik decided, stretching himself luxuriously out across most of the couch and bunching up the T-shirt in the process.   “And I’ll lead the way because of your inferior eyeballs.”    Finding himself momentarily unable to pull his gaze away from the exposed lithe torso of the other, Bakura rather wished his eyes WERE bad.  Life would be much easier in the longrun.

“You lead the way down the abs–uhm…the stairs.” Bakura quickly corrected himself, flushing in frustration and grabbing for one of their ratty throw pillows.   Out of sight, out of mind, he decided, as he planted it on the boy’s belly.  “At the bottom, there’s a weathered wooden door with an iron lever in the wall beside it.  It appears to be a locking mechanism” he went on, ignoring Marik’s put-out noise at being covered up.    
  
“Pull the lever, Kronk!” Marik demanded, flashing him a grin which was not returned.    “Come on, Bakura, I know you’ve seen that movie. Don’t pretend you don’t get my well-timed reference.”  
  
“Jonathan pulls the lever, and the door creaks open, revealing a dark chamber.  There are no torches on the walls to light your way.  How will you proceed?”  
  
“It’ll take more than a dark, underground chamber to stop the great Blishtar!    I’ll head in.  WITH my seeing skills.”    
  
“Unfortunately, your ‘seeing skills’ don’t prevent the door from slamming shut the minute you pass through it.”  Bakura smirked.  
  
“Not _this_ crap again!  I shouldn’t have to trade out my door-opening skills for seeing skills when I’m totally capable of being bi-skilled!”  
  
“Perhaps you should have _seen_ it coming.”  Bakura grinned wolfishly as Marik pinched up his features in disapproval of the pun.  
  
“Friggoff.” he warned, giving the spirit a sharp nudge with one bare foot as Bakura burst into a bray of evil laughter.    “Is there another way out?”  
  
“No.  And as you look for one, something begins to drip down on you from the ceiling.”  
  
“What?? Gross!  Where’s Jonathan? He’s not doing his job as a meat shield!”  
  
“Jonathan is outside the chamber, attempting to break the door in.”  Having said so, Bakura scooped up the die and let it drop to the tabletop, watching it land on a twelve.   “He’ll be successful, unfortunately, it will take him a few minutes.  In the meantime, the substance continues to leak, and you are getting covered in it.  
  
“Geh!  Is it poisonous?   Maybe it’s some sort of acid sludge.   Oh god, is it burning me??   My face is too pretty to be wrecked by a friggin room!”  
  
“It’s thick, and brown.”  the spirit went on.   “And it tastes–”  
  
“It’s in my effing MOUTH??”  Marik squawked. “Eugh!!!  Johnathan, where are you?? I’m dying over here!”  
  
“–like chocolate.”  
  
All at once, the melodrama screeched to a halt as Marik propped himself up on his elbows to pin Bakura with an incredulous look.  “Eh?”  
  
“Chocolate pudding, to be exact.”  he finished, seeming pleased with himself for finally being in a position to get the better of his cohort….at Marik’s insistence, no less..   Marik gawped a moment and then the pillow was flung at Bakura’s face.    
  
“You jerk!  You can’t just fill a room with pudding!”  
  
“I’m the bloody dungeon master, I can do whatever I like!” Bakura countered as the pillow bounced off of his forehead and careened to the floor.   “If you’re interested, Jonathan has broken down the door and suggests that you follow him back upstairs to try the other corridor.”  
  
“ _Fine_.” Marik pouted.   “But I’m not stopping him from walking into any walls.”  
  
“My character is not blind just because he wasn’t won over by you flaunting your idiot body around.” he muttered, consulting his book again.   “The corridor eventually opens into a wide cave.  It looks as if someone has camped there recently.  There are the remnants of a cookfire, some discarded supplies, and in the middle of the room is a stagnant underground pool.”  
  
“YES!  I’m going to get naked!”      
  
“W-What?!” Bakura sputtered, whatever ground he’d gained promptly stolen from beneath him by the proclamation as he whipped his head in his partner’s direction.  
  
“To wash off all that pudding _you_ dumped on me.”  Marik clarified.   “You really think I want to explore my first dungeon looking like I broke out of Bill Cosby’s pantry?”  
  
“Fair enough, go on then.”  he said with a sigh as Marik’s grin resurfaced.     
  
“Where’s Jonathan?  Is he watching me undress?”  
  
“No.  He’s watching the corridor to make sure no one ambushes the party while you’re holding things up.   He doesn’t seem interested in you at all.”    
  
“Oh, _isn’t_ he…?”  the boy asked, narrowing his eyes a bit.    “In that case, he wouldn’t notice me sneaking up and shoving him right in the friggin water.  Which I shall now do!”  
  
“No you don’t, I dodge!”  Bakura protested.  
  
“Oh yeah?  Why don’t you roll for it, then?”    The unapologetic taunt in Marik’s voice made him growl as he swept up the die and dropped it to the table.  It clattered, danced, and came to a stop on….  
  
“….you didn’t see that.” the spirit grumbled as the two young men peered down at the 1 staring face-up accusingly.     
  
“I guess the dungeon master CAN’T do anything he wants.”  the boy preened, not missing an opportunity to spike the ball.  
  
“Shut your face.  All right, you push him into the pool and he never saw you coming. Happy?”   
  
“Very!”  
  
“Although, as soon as he hits the water, something pulls him under.”  
  
“Eh?  Is it a shark?  Bakura, I’ll excuse the pudding room, but you CANNOT have a cave shark.  That’s where I draw the line.”  
  
“It’s not a shark, it’s a water nymph.   And because he was taken so badly off his guard, she was easily able to attack him.”  
  
“What’s a water nymph?”  Marik questioned, arching a brow as Bakura peered at the manual.     
  
“ _An aquatic faerie found commonly in bodies of stagnant fresh water._ ”  he read off.   “ _This solely-female race preys upon unsuspecting males, enthralling them with their magic and venom, which acts as a powerful aphrodisiac.   Taken with desire, ensorcelled prey willingly drown themselves in pursuit of them.    Effects last up to six hours following an attack.    Like other faeries, they are weak to iron, bells, and eggshells_.”   
  
“Pff, well good thing we don’t need to worry about you chasing _girls_.”  Marik scoffed.  “So what’s going on down there?”  
  
“She’s injecting him with her venom via a long kiss.”  Bakura reported.  “…and he’s liking it.”  
  
“Excuse me?! Nobody mouth-glomps MY sidekick and gets away with it, ESPECIALLY not some underwater fangirl!”  
  
“I recall you saying something similar that time we were ambushed in the hotel pool at that convention last year.”  the spirit said flatly.  “Just before you started beating people with the lifeguard pole and got us thrown out.”  
  
“It’s for rescuing people.” Marik said, rolling his eyes.  “I _rescued_ you, Bakura.”  
  
“Yes.  At any rate, I suppose you should roll to attack the nymph unless you want to stand there and watch me drown like a naked git.”   Needing no further prompting, Marik rolled the die with gusto.  
  
“Seventeen!” he declared proudly.  
  
“Not bad.  And, since I’ll assume you were not so stupid as to jump into the water without your weapon–”  
  
“I totally grabbed that, yes!”  
  
“–the iron from your dagger, in combination with your attack, disables the nymph with your first strike.   You are able to finish her off with no trouble.”  
  
“HA!  Serves her right!  And then I grab Jonathan’s sorry butt and drag it out of the water.  Or do I have to roll for butt-grabbing initiative too?”  
  
“Considering he’s in no condition to fight you and the nymph is dead, we’ll let it slide.  They’ll lose six hours in the cave waiting for the venom to wear off.”  
  
“Okay, but couldn’t they hurry it along somehow?”  
  
“Hurry what now?”  
  
“Well…I mean…”  Marik scratched the back of his neck, back to lounging on the couch.   “Back when I was a kid, my dad didn’t believe in antivenom, so if you got bitten by a snake, he’d just roll you up in a rug and tell you to sweat it out.”  
  
Bakura sighed.  Marik’s abject mistreatment as a child was a topic he never really knew how to respond to.     “There are no rugs.” he settled for.    
  
“Oh well, we’ll just have to try something else, then.”  the boy said in a tone that seemed to suggest he’d been planning on that from the start.  “He’s still all love-dumb from that kiss, right?”  
  
“Er…yes, I guess you could call it that.”  
  
“Good.”  Marik sat up with a kick of his legs, and gave a menacing grin.  “Then I _kiss you_.”    
  
“He…kisses you back, then.”   the spirit fumbled, distracting himself with the pages in front of him as he attempted to figure out what their next peril would be as he waited for Marik to get to whatever his point was.    
  
“Maybe I should roll to see if I strip you down and nibble on your neck as revenge for not paying attention to me, what do you think?”    he went on, deliberately getting in the spirit’s face, despite his heroic effort of not paying him any mind.   The pads of Bakura’s fingers dug into the pages, creasing the paper a bit.  
  
“Are you talking about me or my barbarian?” he asked, flicking his eyes up to meet his cohort’s  
  
“I’m in-character, Bakura! Don’t interrupt!”  Marik scolded.    “I take my adventuring very seriously.   I will not be set back for six hours because of you.”  
  
“Of course…”  he cleared his throat to respond proper.   That had been the plan, at least, except Marik had seemed to take the agreement as permission to go ahead and pull the manual from his hands and slip into his lap.   “Marik, what the bugger are you doing??”  he barked in surprise.  
  
“Taking drastic action, Jonathan.”  he replied, leaning in closer.  “We must work up a good sweat on you as quickly as possible.”  
  
“Marik–”  
  
“I know not who this ‘Marik’ is you speak of, though he sounds incredibly evil and pretty.  **_I_** am the great Blishtar of Oakwood - slayer of fangirls and keeper of superior eyes.”  
  
“And straight as an arrow, I presume…” Bakura pried, waiting for the last-minute fakeout.   Their faces were so close, and he could - he really WANTED to - just lean in and kiss him.  The resulting fallout and likely knee in the crotch as Marik scrambled out of his lap would all be worth it if he could just–  
  
Marik completed the circuit for him, planting a fervent, if clumsy, kiss on his mouth, breaking it off after a handful of breathless seconds.   “Shut up before you break the immersion.”  he hissed.   Bakura boggled in response, though took Marik’s cue without further complaint.    
  
“How do you plan to make me sweat, then, hmm?”  he purred,   “I’m sure a sexy….”  his eyes darted desperately to Marik’s character sheet sitting nearby on the coffee table.  “…elf, such as you has plenty of ideas.”  
  
“Hey, don’t assume just because I’m an elf that I’ve got sweaty ideas!” Marik protested.  “…though, yes.  As it so happens, I DO.”  
  
Bakura felt his mouth twitch into a smile as he plucked up enough nerve to go in for a second kiss.   “Show me, then.” he murmured against Marik’s mouth.  
  
And he did.

  
————————————–

  
  
“ANOTHER campaign?”  Yugi said in disbelief, watching Ryou compare notes and shuffle papers over the Skype video call.    
  
“Yes!  This one’s a bit of a standalone from my others, meant to cater to a smaller group.   It was going to be a throwaway, but it was received so well that I thought I’d add more to it for the players and–”  
  
“Okay.  Okay, Bakura…?  I’m going to be honest.  You lost me at ‘yes’.”  Yugi intoned.    
  
“Come on, old chap, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”  the white-haired teen smiled brightly.   “You’re quite possibly the only one in school who’s a bigger nerd than ** _I_** am.”  
  
“Please, we haven’t been to that place in _years_.” the young duelist scoffed.   “At the rate _you’re_ going, you’ll never be a main character.  OR get laid.”  
  
Ryou’s pencil stopped mid-scratch on the paper as he smirked.  
  
“Funny you should bring that up…”


	5. Marik loses a fight with an inanimate object

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - Marik getting his hand stuck in a vending machine and Bakura has to help him out

**[text]** Where the hell are you?  
  
Bakura scowled as he punched ‘send’ and stuffed the phone back into his pocket.  Ordinarily, he would have told Marik that he was on his own as soon as the words ‘midnight video game release’ had left the boy’s lips.   As it was, however, the video game in question was the next in line of the Vampire: The Masquerade franchise and, like it or not, they DID owe that title a lot.  It had done more for their relationship this last little while than years of fanfiction and fanart had managed.  
  
The plan had seemed simple as far as Marik’s plans went….they would queue up outside of the game store immediately after it closed, thereby ensuring they were first in line when it opened again.   Despite Bakura’s arguments that he doubted they’d have much competition for line spaces out here in Pudunk, Egypt, and that he rather doubted anyone aside from the two of them was even interested in an attempt to revive a dated RPG about vampires, Marik had insisted.  
  
Thus, there they were.  Or rather, there Bakura was…he had not seen hide nor hair of Marik since they’d split up a couple of hours ago with the demand they meet back here at nine PM sharp   (”No excuses, Bakura, if you’re NOT there, I’m getting in line without you and you can get in the back.  No cuts will be granted!” he’d said).    As the retail drone inside locked the door, flipped the ‘Open’ sign over to ‘Closed’, and then retreated into the back out of view, Bakura kept expecting Marik to appear at any moment.  He had probably gotten caught up in whatever one-man fashion show he was putting on in some unfortunate boutique’s dressing room again and lost track of time…  
  
His pocket vibrated, making him reach for his phone in a most Pavlovian way, ready to hear his partner’s explanation. 

**[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** be there soon  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** I’ve been standing out here for half an hour…..  
 **[text]** **Marik S. Ishtar III:** yea  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** That’s all you have to say about it?  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** typing onehanded give me abreak  
  
One thin, snowy brow quirked.    
  
**[text]**   **Florence:** I may require further explanation.  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** other hand is busy  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** How busy?  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** very  
  
Ordinarily Marik’s impulsive nature drove him up the wall.   As a creature who spent thousands of years perfecting plans and then spending five seasons carrying them out, he preferred to take things in slow measures.   Though occasionally, his interests and Marik’s managed to align, and when they did…  
  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** tell me about it  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** just kind of happened  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** how does it feel?  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** prettytight.  hurts alittle.  
  
The spirit felt his teeth sink into his bottom lip reflexively, casting a desperate look about the parking lot where a few cars lingered, but none of their owners were present.   Of course he would bloody pick NOW, of all times…!  Ducking behind one of the shopping center’s concrete pillars, out of anyone’s immediate sight, his hand crept back into his jeans pocket, this time for reasons entirely unrelated to his phone.

**[text]**   **Florence:** wish I was there.  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** me too  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** what would you have me do?  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** help out  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** feel free to be a little more descriptive than that, Marik  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** ok?  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** I would command you to help me out.  And then you would help me.  And then my hand would no longer be stuck in this f***ing machine.  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** Should I also tell you what I am wearing?  
  
It was as if a giant needle somewhere had scratched off of an equally-giant record and he frowned, the stirrings of excitement deflating out of him.   To be fair, an impromptu sexting session out in public _was_ , perhaps, more than he ought to expect from His Royal Straightness, hopeful as he’d been.    Clearing his throat, Bakura readjusted his shirt over his waistline.  
  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** what machine?  Where are you?  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** you know where that Magic Chicken machine is that gives out the plastic prize eggs in front of the grocery store?  
 **[text]**   **Florence:** no.  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** right next to that.  
 **[text]**   **Marik S. Ishtar III:** pls hurry I can’t take much more clucking

He rolled his eyes, set his jaw, and then….  
  
 **[text]** **Florence:** omw  
  
—————————————–  
  
Despite the fact that Marik had described his exact problem, Bakura found himself rather unprepared for the sight that awaited him as he reached the end of the strip mall and rounded its corner.    There was, indeed, a grocery store there, along with a cluster of vending machines posted out front.   And there, shoulder-deep in the Coke machine, was Marik.     
  
“Tell me you aren’t just crammed in there because you refuse to let go of something.” the spirit groaned.    
  
“Bakura!”  relief momentarily colored up Marik’s features before souring into offense.  “NO.   I’ve SEEN that episode of The Simpsons, thank you.”  
  
“Just checking.”    Bakura slowly rounded the front of the machine, assessing the situation.   “….how did this happen?”    The question fetched a put-out huff from his partner.     
  
“Look, I put in my quarter and then it didn’t give me my soda.  That’s about the long and short of it, and I will _not_ be out-villained by the friggin Coca Cola company!”  
  
“You know they cost more than a quarter.”  
  
“Well they shouldn’t!”  Marik snapped, beginning to try and wriggle himself free anew.   Bakura found himself staring, wondering how, exactly, someone like Marik managed to exist.   One minute, he was firing on all cylinders with a massive, well-organized army of mindslaves that had secured bloody god cards for him, and the next, he was flopping around on the sidewalk after losing a battle with an inanimate object.  
  
“Here, stop that.”  the spirit said after having had his fill of basking in the spectacle, dropping to one knee beside Marik to examine things up close now that he’d involved himself.   “How stuck are you?  Can you move at all?”  
  
“Kinda…?  Nngh…”  he winced, doing something up inside of the machine to demonstrate what, if Bakura had x-ray vision, would have been most helpful.  Lacking that, he ducked a hand into the machine beside Marik, following the boy’s forearm upward until he reached the point that his partner’s limb disappeared into the thing’s metal guts.  
  
“Try relaxing yourself.”  
  
“How do you expect me to friggin _relax_?? Bakura, I’m trapped!  I’m facing down the very real possibility of going through life _wearing_ an effing soda machine and you’re telling me to **_relax_**!”  
  
“Try.” Bakura said again.  “It might make it easier to pull you out.”    Marik glared at him, and then made a great show of going limp on the sidewalk as if someone had pulled his plug.    
  
“There.  I am now relaxed.  Just call me Pasithea, that’s how friggin relaxed I am.”   
  
“….who?”  Bakura grunted, giving the trapped wrist a tug and finding it, no less, stuck.  
  
“You know, the girl from the greek myths?  She was the goddess of relaxation and went on to marry that Hypno guy who later became a pokemon creepypasta?”  
  
“I don’t like those stories.  They lost me after that Zeus fellow gave birth out of his head.”  
  
“Not when he kept turning himself into animals and ran around having sex with random women?”  
  
“If I had a quid for every fanfiction I’ve read that ends up following that same storyline…” the spirit grumbled, pulling harder.  
  
“Ow…OW! Quiddit!“  Marik protested, swatting at Bakura with his free hand until he gave up and scooted beyond the boy’s reach.  
  
“I don’t know how you managed it, Marik, but you’re good and wedged in there.” he sighed.  
  
“Yes, way to notice things Captain Noticey McNoterson of the LOOK! Brigade…”  
  
Bakura scowled, and in that moment, could easily see himself walking away.   Perhaps Marik would be feeling less sarcastic if he were left to the elements for a few hours.   ….the elements, in this case, being the incredulous stares from late evening shoppers and the clucking of that infernal mechanical chicken.  
  
He could, he told himself.  He really SHOULD…  
  
“Hey where’re you going??” Marik demanded to know as Bakura regained his feet and drifted toward the sliding doors.    
  
“Inside for a bit.  Maybe they have a wrench.” he said, considering this a compromise.    
  
“What, and just leave me here?!   You can’t–hey!  Bakura, don’t go in there!  I mean it!  Not one more step!”  Marik barked at his back.    “ ** _BAKURA_**!  I COMMAND YOU TO–”  
  
And then the doors swiffed shut behind him, neatly cutting off the rest of Marik’s tirade as the spirit breathed a sigh of relief.    Marik in high spirits was challenging enough to deal with.   Marik in an obnoxious mood because he’d fed one of his limbs to a soda machine was something to be taken in small doses.       
  
He’d do a couple of laps around the shop, he decided, as he snatched and pocketed a fig from a fruit display he was passing by.  That ought to give Marik enough time to wind himself down a bit, and allow Bakura to locate the ‘Idiot-Liberating Tools’ section.  
  
——————————————  
  
“So, it turns out they didn’t have any wrenches.” Bakura reported about fifteen minutes later to a highly-aloof Marik who was, best as his current position allowed him, snubbing Bakura with all of his might.   “Or….any tools at all, for that matter, actually.  So I’m afraid I had to work with what was available to me.”  
  
“Yeah, well, it’d better be good.”  Marik sniffed, unable to help watching out of the corner of his eye as Bakura unveiled his stolen prize from beneath his shirt.  He blinked, and then scowled in annoyance.  “Oh yes. Ha ha, Bakura, you’re HILARIOUS.  You know, for a minute there, I thought you were actually going to be _helpful_.”  
  
“I AM being helpful.” the spirit insisted, uncapping the tube of KY Jelly and squirting some generously into his palm.   “Now hold still.”  
  
“What?  What are you doing??” he demanded to know, squirming away from Bakura as he approached.   “You get away from me with that!”  
  
“Shut your face.”    Bakura’s patience with the whole fiasco was wearing thin, and he was in no mood for Marik’s flapping around about his methods for fixing the problem as he scooted in beside his partner, shoving his arm up into the machine.    
  
“I mean it, Bakura!“  Marik insisted, still struggling.   “There’s only one thing that can be assumed of two guys being all squirmy on the ground with a bottle of lube open for all to see!”  
  
“That one of them is a buggering idiot who likes to insert himself into machinery?”  he grunted, greasing whatever of Marik’s he could reach up in there.  
  
“That’s more about you than I care to know!”  Marik shot back, deflecting the implication.    
  
“Try pulling now.”  
  
Marik needed no prompting as he was already doing exactly that.   In fact, it was debatable he’d ever stopped  
  
“Is it budging at all?”  
  
“No, —ow!  It hurts!”  
  
“Stop being a baby.  Maybe try moving a bit to the left.  ….no, your OTHER left.”  
  
“This is it.  This is how I die, Bakura.   I want you to know that once I’m gone, it’s up to YOU to ensure that Yugi’s wardrobe never has an orderly day again.  My legacy must be continued.”  
  
“Stop that.  Here, let me try…”  
  
“I LIVE, I DIE, I LIVE AGAIN. WITNESS MEEEE!“  
  
There was an audible noise, like a cork being removed from a bottle, and both of them went toppling backward in a heap as Marik immediately bolted upright to inspect his newly-liberated hand.  Aside from a small dent in his jewelry, and the fact he was covered from the elbow down in lube, everything was perfectly intact and functional.   After he had confirmed this, Marik gave a sigh of relief…which quickly became a haughty sniff.  
  
“There, see?  I would’ve gotten myself out eventually.”   From where he was picking himself up and brushing himself off nearby, Bakura glowered.  
  
“Yes, because, of course, *I* did nothing…”  
  
“Yes, I know.   But that’s fine, I’ll just count it as one that you owe me later.”  Marik informed him, regaining his feet and giving the offending coke machine a kick.  There was a loud click from somewhere inside, followed by a hail of cans onto the sidewalk before them, as if Marik had just struck the jackpot in Bizzaroland.  
  
The two of them stared, and then exchanged a look which ended in Marik grinning triumphantly and Bakura turning away with his eyes rolled in disgust.  There were times he caught himself thinking that Marik Sebastian Ishtar the third was the most unnecessary thing to happen to his character timeline…  
  
As he trudged back to the game store, he was aware of Marik scuttling up beside him to keep pace.   “Hey Bakura.” he ventured.  
  
“What?” he growled dangerously, stuffing his hands into his pockets.   Something nudged his shoulder making him turn to see Marik offering him back the tube of jelly.  
  
“You left this back there.”  
  
“Why don’t you hang onto it?   I may not be there to supervise next time you feel like trying strip mall spelunking.”  
  
“Don’t be friggin ridiculous, Bakura.  As if I’D be caught carrying something like that around.  And anyway, as my second-in-command it is your sworn duty to hang onto things I wouldn’t be caught carrying.”  
  
“Just like its my ‘sworn duty’ to hold your place in line at the ticket counter while you take selfies with all of the movie posters, and to clean the kitchen, and to get rid of the bugs you find in the tub.”  
  
“YES. It’s a very expansive job.  You knew that when you applied for it.”  Marik nodded as Bakura snatched the KY away from him and pocketed it with an irritated noise.  He’d just finished when his arm was nudged again.  
  
“ **WHAT…?!** ”  he snarled, his voice practically dripping with black venom as he whipped his head in Marik’s direction, finding that he was being offered a can of Coke.    
  
“You want a soda?”  Marik asked, flashing him his most winning of smiles as Bakura’s look of murder faded into one of puzzlement.  
  
“Where did you–”   his eyes, then, strayed lower to where Marik’s pants and pockets bulged out ridiculously from all angles with the six or seven cans of soda he’d snatched up from the broken machine’s payout and was now attempting to act natural as he carried.     
  
Bakura wanted to stay angry….he really, REALLY did…  
  
A loud snort tore out of him which he quickly tried to muffle behind his hand as laughter threatened.  
  
“Bugger me…” he wheezed out.  
  
“Maybe later.”  Marik said, popping the tab and taking a drink.   “For now, we have a much more important mission, Bakura.   The front of the line is calling our names and we must go to it!  ONWARD!”  
  
“Yes….onward.”  Bakura agreed, a thin smile resting on his lips as they walked, Marik sloshing every step of the way.


	6. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - Morning after in the Marik and Bakura go to Censored Town timeline? Like, between the two last chapters? 
> 
> ((Disclaimer: Marik And Bakura Go To Censored Town is an excellent fanfiction by Martin Billany. This drabble is, in no way, officially associated with his work or plotline))

For the first few hours after they’d gone to bed, Bakura had kept an arm draped over Marik, feeling it necessary to touch him at all times.   It wasn’t so much that he wanted to keep the boy from escaping, and more that he still, despite all of the waterlogged kissing and oral sex, hadn’t quite convinced himself this wasn’t all a dream.     
  
If he didn’t keep himself anchored in it somehow, he might be forced to wake up and face the personal hell of frustration that had been his status quo for the last few years…  
  
And so he’d clung to his partner possessively throughout their nap, stirring every time Marik twitched or shifted, and soothing his agitation at being awoken by watching the boy slumber until he’d nodded off again himself.      
  
It was bliss, madness, and exhausting all at once - much like Marik himself.  He hadn’t realized just HOW exhausting, though, until the sound of the rotary phone clattering back onto its cradle jolted him from a sound rest.    "This place is SO getting a one star review from me on Yelp.“ Marik declared.

“What now…?” Bakura muttered, rubbing the itch of sleep from the corners of his eyes as they focused on Marik who was busy making it quite clear he was put-out.   Either Bakura had been out cold, or, in another of his ‘grand reveals’, Marik had just demonstrated his ability to be amazingly stealthy by creeping out of bed, getting dressed, and making a phone call without his noticing.  

“I’ve called for room service no less than FIVE TIMES and they can’t be bothered to pick up the friggin phone.”

“What do you expect?  It _is_ somewhat of a ghost town…”  He watched the way Marik’s hands immediately went to fidget with the hem of his shirt, no doubt reminded of Melvin’s escapades throughout Cum Town yesterday morning.   …. _was_ it yesterday?   How long had they been asleep?

Either way, Bakura felt that he’d quite like to strip him out of the garment entirely, and devote the rest of this “trip” to distractions.    Distractions of the naked variety, preferably.    "What were you calling about, anyway?“

“I still don’t have my churros.”  Marik informed him, leaping at the subject change.    "Is that really so much to ask, Bakura?   Churros for breakfast.   It’s not like I want them to fold all the bath towels into animals and leave me a bowl of red M&M’s on the friggin vanity!“

“To be fair, those WERE your demands at the last hotel we stayed at.  What time is it…?”     His answer was a shrug as Marik folded his arms over his chest.

“I don’t know, but I’m in desperate need of getting something in my mouth.”  

“I’m sure you are.”   As much as it pleased him to entertain the idea that it was a come-on, Bakura was fairly sure Marik’s mind was nowhere except on his bloody churros.  

“I mean it, Bakura.  You’re the only one of the two of us who can make that whole ‘gaunt’ thing work for you.   *I* require three meals a day to maintain my sexiness!”  He paused, then, as if something had just occurred to him.  "….come to think of it, DO you ever eat?“

“Of course I eat!  What kind of bollocks is that?” Bakura grumbled, kicking off the covers to grab up his heavily blood-stained clothes and skulk into the bathroom to get dressed.   It wouldn’t even be the most alarming thing he’d ever worn in public since moving in with Marik….

“I didn’t ask you about eating bollocks!” Marik called after him.  "I’ve just never actually seen you eat!  You attack food with your face, that’s not the same thing.“

_You’re one to talk about eating bollocks and attacking things with your face.._. Bakura thought as he hitched up his jeans.  It was easy to see himself saying it aloud, and to picture the outrage that would briefly cross Marik’s features before he would quickly start coming up with excuses to explain everything away.    Or deny it entirely.  
  
…..no.  He didn’t want to play that game anymore, he decided.   After all of the recent happenings - Marik’s brush with death, their near parting of ways, the Melvin episode, the stab wounds, and the two of them ‘making up’ in the shower until the water ran freezing and chased them out - Bakura was not eager to offer Marik back any of the ground they’d broken.     
  
“Why don’t we get out of here?” he suggested instead, exiting the bathroom and crossing the room to part the dusty, water-stained curtains and peer outside.   It was early in the afternoon, he guessed.   “I can’t promise you churros, but we’ll find something if we follow the highway long enough.”  
  
“What’s the point in being on vacation if you can’t even promise me churros?” Marik pouted, nonetheless making a sweep of the room to see if he’d forgotten anything.  “I’M driving, by the way.” he informed Bakura, holding out his hand for the Marikmobile’s keys.  The spirit arched a brow at the outstretched palm, before favoring Marik with a smirk.  
  
“They’re still in the car.”   
  
“Of course they are!” Marik retorted, parroting Bakura’s own exasperated outburst from earlier back at him as he breezed out of the room, the spirit trailing after with the smile still on his face.  
  
———————  
  
They pulled into the first roadside dive they came across, where Marik promptly demanded a shortstack of chocolate chip pancakes as they were ushered into a booth.   With Bakura’s follow-up order of steak and eggs put in, and a couple of glasses of water set in front of them, they were left to one another and the issue of the elephant that may have been in the room  
  
Very little conversation had passed between them during the couple of hours spent on winding backroads that, eventually, had rejoined civilization.  Ordinarily Bakura would have been grateful that the radio dial had gotten the bulk of Marik’s attention as he fiddled with it in search of reception, though, in this case, the quiet had been unsettling.   Instead of slipping off into his thoughts, Bakura had found himself more concerned with Marik’s own, now aware that far more was going on behind those pretty, vacuous eyes than he’d previously thought.  
  
“So…” he prompted, lacking a better conversation starter.  
  
“There isn’t even a friggin maze on this thing…”  Marik noted, squinting at the paper mat with a small list of offerings on it that served as a kids’ menu.  
  
“Pity.    People may be forced to have an actual discussion.”  
  
“Well I don’t know about _most_ people, but *I* am skilled enough to have an actual discussion while navigating my way to the pirate treasure.”  he declared.  “Hey, Bakura!  Remember that one year for Halloween when I was the cowboy and you were the pirate?”  
  
“Yes, Marik…”  
  
“And you were wearing that REALLY obnoxious bandana that I told you ruined the entire costume?”  
  
“Are we going to talk about it or not?” he deadpanned, finding his patience for Marik’s wandering train of thought to be a bit limited at the moment.    
  
“What, your terrible taste in patterns?”  
  
“You know what I mean.  I want to know how you feel about it.”  
  
“Well…it’s not a _dealbreaker_ or anything….”   he began, fumbling through his pants pockets in search of a pen, perhaps so that he could draw his own maze.   When that failed, he retrieved his phone instead, holding it at comically-drastic angles in search of a signal.   “It just means I’ve got a lot to teach you about fashion so that we accessorize properly when we appear at evil functions.”  
  
Bakura wanted to scream in frustration…instead he sighed, reaching up to rub his temples.  Despite his best efforts, it seemed, Marik was intent on dragging them back to square one, and what could he do about it, really?   He’d seen how well trying to leave had worked out…  
  
“Don’t worry, a lot of guys need help reaching their potential for sexiness.” Marik went on.   “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.  I hear they even make a pill for it now.”  
  
“I don’t give a bloody damn abou–”  he had started to snarl out, though something stopped him - an odd sensation at his ankle that ran up his calf and down again.  It took him a moment to realize that it was Marik’s foot, idly stroking his leg under the cheap checkered tablecloth.  Above-deck, he betrayed nothing….except maybe the very slightest slant of amusement in his eyes that one would have to be looking for to find.      
  
Marik had done it _again_ , he realized….set the same trap and Bakura had charged headlong into it a second time.   And the buggering bastard _knew_ it.   Upon seeing the dumbfounded realization on Bakura’s face, Marik’s lips curved into a sly, self-satisfied smile….one that said yes, he knew what Bakura was talking about.  Yes, he was well-aware that yesterday he’d had his mouth all over his best friend’s junk.  And _maybe_ he was even okay with that, but he had no intention of saying so, one way or the other, right now.    
  
“You know what we should do?”  he went on, as if he were not low-key caressing his cohort in public.   “When we stop for gas, we should pick up snacks for the plane trip.  That way we’re not stuck paying five freaking dollars for a can of Coke.”  
  
“Yes, well…”  Bakura swallowed through a throat that had become a bit tight.  “…good luck getting them through security.   They may taze you on sight for possessing weapons of mass destruction.”  
  
“Don’t be stupid, Bakura, that only happens with twinkies.”   With that, Marik withdrew his foot back to his side of the table, busying himself with a game of Candy Crush as he awaited his food.   Bakura watched him, somewhat dazed at how rapidly the emotional rollercoaster had twisted, turned, and dumped him on his head.   He didn’t care much for that ride, he was finding….though at least it wasn’t The Water Hole.  
  
At length, he decided to hand the game to Marik…fool him twice, shame on him, after all.   Though, this wasn’t over.   Oh, no.   Once they got to the States, in fact, Bakura fully intended to tip the balance of power back in his favor by any means necessary.     
  
They’d just _see_ who wore the thong in this relationship…


	7. After Bakura's Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - What went on between Marik and Melvin, exactly, after Bakura left in Censored Town?
> 
> ((another MABGTCT-based drabble. Once again, the story is not my property and this drabble is merely an imagining on my part. (though Martin DID reblog it at one point, so yay!) ))

The sound of the engine gunning was impossibly loud in the stillness of the early morning and made Marik look up from the aimless shapes he’d been drawing in the sand.   Somewhere over the rise he huddled at the base of, the Marikmobile’s tires fussed for purchase before finding the ground and peeling out, drawing further and further away until he could no longer hear the motor’s growl.  

Marik supposed now was a bad time to remember that he’d left his sunglasses in the glove compartment.  And his tanning oil.  ….and his phone.

Ordinarily, Bakura’s temper was a predictable beast.  He would get angry about something dumb, they’d argue a bit, and Bakura would skulk off for an hour or so.  When he came back, he’d be a few wallets richer, with some suspicious ruddy stains on his clothes and no questions would be asked aside from what they were doing about dinner later.   

He’d never resigned before…and worse, the boy still had no idea what had brought them here.  

Marik drew a deep breath and held it as he used the tip of the stick to draw an uneven square in the sand.   “Okay so, we started out at the motel…” he muttered aloud, deciding that a recap of their day thus far was a good start.   “…and then we stopped at that shop to see if _they_ had churros, but they were closed…"  a smaller square was drawn with a line connecting the two.   ”…and then we came directly here to beat the morning crowd.“   A longer line was trailed over to the crooked spiral he’d already drawn earlier he had decided would represent the waterhole.

With the meager map drawn, Marik studied it, perplexed, not seeing where he’d gone wrong.  It was like something had _happened_ between his doing a headstand and Bakura snatching him off of the most awesome ride he’d ever taken in his life or something.   His free hand wandered up to gingerly touch the bleeding goose egg on his temple. 

That jerk had TOTALLY punched him.

As the sun rose higher, beginning to cast its light blindingly over the shallow water, Marik allowed the stick to drop from his hand as he gathered his legs beneath himself and shambled up the rise to head back to town.  He was an evil villain with important business to tend to, after all…business that did not require a limey fruitcake to get it done.  Especially not a limey fruitcake who had a habit of storming out on his Evil Council.   

You know what? Fine. Great.  He was GLAD Bakura was gone.  Maybe he’d get some real work done for a change instead of having to stop everything all the time because The Party Police had decided his latest plan was a flop before he’d even finished friggin explaining it…!

By the time he’d reached what served as civilization in Cum Town, Marik was visibly fuming.  He made a B-line straight for the motel, treating what few souls existed in this place to his disheveled, bleeding near-naked glory as he went.   He ignored the owner (who had managed to crawl behind the front desk today) slurring at him that checkout was at eleven and flamed straight up the rickety stairs to their room.  

Marik wrenched open the door, which was just as unlocked as the car had been.   It was hard to tell if anything had been stolen or not, given that they hadn’t brought much with them to begin with, but presently, it didn’t rank high enough on Marik’s give-a-frig scale to pay it much attention. 

No sooner had he swept the door shut behind him than Marik had grabbed for the first object he could close his hands on - a half-eaten bag of potato chips he’d rescued from under the driver’s seat - and flung them across the room.  It was not nearly the dramatic expression of his frustration he’d wanted it to be as the bag bounced impotently off of the wall with a crinkle of plastic and a scattering of a few broken crisps.

“I HOPE YOU RUN OUT OF GAS!” he yelled at no one, giving the bedpost a kick that bruised his shin.   “And I hope that when you do it’s friggin miles from the nearest friggin town and no one stops to friggin help you!  So you have to walk in the sun and get all burnt  and then spend days yelling at people not to pick at it!”

Marik stood there a moment, his breath huffing, and feeling no better for his outburst as his head began to throb, making him sink onto the edge of the mattress with a groan.  

Maybe it HAD been a bad idea, coming here.   

Yeah.  Okay.   But, even so, it wasn’t a HUGE deal…he’d just call Odion and–

**_NOBODY is calling Odion._ **

His hand suddenly turned traitor on him mid-reach for the rotary phone on the bedside table as it was rudely swept to the floor in a clatter.   Marik was allowed only a second to ponder this before he was distracted suddenly by the agony knifing through his skull as he gave a yelp, clutching at it.  In the cage of his head, a familiar, rotten voice began to laugh.   

**_Awww, what’s the matter?  Trouble in paradise, Mr. Main Personality?_ **

Marik ground his teeth and huddled in on himself as the presence grew larger, threatening to swallow him up in it.  It was seldom Melvin made a direct grab for the wheel this way, usually opting to creep in while Marik was sleeping, lost in turbulent nightmares of his past, and do as much damage as he could before the boy woke.  …or rather before Bakura sent him packing. 

Except now there WAS no Bakura, and no need to be secretive.  With Marik’s strongest lines of defense well out of reach, there was little to stop his darkness from doing as he liked and Melvin seemed to be wasting no time.

_**Now that’s just pathetic** _

  Melvin remarked as Marik rolled himself off of the mattress and made as if to crawl beneath the bed to the tune of more laughter.  

**_How are you supposed to meet new people that way?  We’ll start off easy…by hugging every person in this godforsaken pisshole, what do you say?  
_ **

“I don’t–” was the last thing Marik got out before the world spun out of control and pummeled him backward. Dusky irises contracted to pinpricks as a malicious grin contorted the grimace of pain that had been there a moment ago.    Best of all, Marik wasn’t entirely gone…Melvin could feel him peeking out from the box in the back of his mind that he’d been shoved into, wary and frightened. 

The only thing better than being back was having his very own captive audience…

“Now…“he began, getting up, fetching the Millennium rod from its hiding place in the nightstand’s drawer and sauntering for the door.“…about those hugs.“

———

The great thing about small towns was everyone was firmly invested in one another’s business to the point they never missed an opportunity for gossip   So, when one person began screaming bloody murder, it stood to reason that the rest of them would come scuttling out of hiding to see what the commotion was all about. 

Cum Town, Melvin had learned, had been a population of twenty-three people.

Now it was a pile of approximately eighteen corpses and various assorted parts.

“Well, that was fun.”  Melvin remarked, kicking open the door as he returned to the motel room, dripping with gore and sporting more than a few bruises from those who had tried to put up a struggle rather than simply accept their looming demise.   “Just like old times, wasn’t it?  You, me, and all that stabbing.”

While Marik had, initially, been pretty noisy within their shared headspace, with his cries of ‘I DO NOT LIKE’ and his shrill wailing as he was forced to witness the slaughter and mayhem his body was unleashing, he had been quiet for awhile now.     Had Bakura been there, he would have been the first to say what a rare and blessed event it was for Marik to shut his face for longer than it took to eat a handful of cheetos.  
  
However, Bakura _wasn’t_ there, and Melvin found himself annoyed at the ongoing radio silence.  
  
“Oh come on, the cold shoulder?  That’s no way to treat your _friend_.” he growled, raking the point of the rod across his ribs in a sudden, violent motion, finding himself gratified by both the blood spilling down his groin and the agonized squirming he could sense from Marik’s direction.   “HAHAHA that’s right, it’s me!  The only one who’s never walked out on you, Marik!  Your **BEST** friend…!”   ‘best’ was punctuated with another gash being opened across the glorious midriff they shared.   “The one who’s not going anywhere no matter HOW sick he gets of your crap!”  the point opened a wound over a pectoral next, fetching a pained squawk from somewhere within Melvin and a peal of insane laughter from the madman driving their body.   

“Clearly, you’re just going to have to learn to appreciate my methods of showing affection.”  he  finished, snaking out his obscenely-long tongue between his teeth to lick the red from the millennium item’s gold surface.  “That’s okay, we’ve got nothing but time.”  
  
He flopped himself gracelessly on the edge of the bed, drinking in Marik’s confusion, pain, and upset the way some people might sip on a Sunday brunch mimosa.  

And then, he felt it…heat prickling at the rims of his eyes that pooled and spilled down his cheeks in thin trails.  
  
“Are you fucking **_crying_**?!” Melvin howled in both outrage and amusement as he erupted into another cascade of awful laughter that soon had him sprawling across the mattress in a mess of blood and wild hair.   He grabbed for the wadded bedcovers to wipe his leaking face with, draping them across his head like a shroud in the process as he sat back up.  
  
“ _ **BWAAAAA I am a poor, tender daffodil!  Daddy cut up my back, and now nobody will ever think I’m pretty!  WAAAAAAH!  I’m a terrible villain who will never be taken seriously and NEVER defeat the Pharaoh!  BOO HOO HOO!  One day i will fade into fandom obscurity and the next generation of anime watchers won’t even remember my name!**_ ”   the madman wailed, airing all of Marik’s deepest insecurities all over the room as mockingly as possible.  
  
It was a bizarre, unsettling display wherein it was hard to tell where Marik’s actual crying ended and where Melvin’s cruel parody of it began, leaving him huddled there on the end of the bed,  weeping as loudly and messily as he could manage for the next several minutes.  
  
“Marik,”  
  
Bakura’s voice cut through the “festivities”, making Melvin freeze and putting his hackles on-end.   Melvin didn’t know who was more pitiful - Marik for simply being himself, or Florence for not being able to get away from him after all.  
  
But Melvin _did_ know one thing, as he forcibly shoved Marik’s presence away, deeper into the black of his subconscious as his hand tightened on the rod beneath the covers.

Things were about to get very _interesting._


End file.
